Slowly replaying the game with a new profile. Writing some stuff I would like to see discussion on as it comes.

New Wonafyt/Weytwut: Assuming EXP bonus works the same way as IMWAL, at level 4 this suddenly becomes a good glyph IMO. Killing monsters equal in level to you gives just about the same bonus killing a monster 1 level higher would. And you can probably kill higher level monsters with this glyph.

Compared to IMWAL, you don't need to leave popcorn around and you don't need to build walls which might end up blocking your path. It is a bit mana hungry though so BludToPowa helps.

I'm still a little undecided on Wonafyt. You're not as likely to kill enemies with the slow effect with this glyph since as far as I can tell the monster pull is random. Though it seems that the minimum exp bonus is 1 extra exp, so if you can one-shot level 1s with it then you suddenly become Fighter-lite for the early levels.

Monk: Okay, I am going to go with a different direction with this topic.

Does anyone remember the original reason for the Monk's change from Alpha? I believe it was "Because Human was a no-brainer race decision"

As it turns out, it seems like Monk is still kind of a no-brainer decision for race, just change "Human" to "Orc" but let's go into a bit more detail.

Orc: Best choice because it's easy to ramp their conversions and fix your main disadvantage.

Human: Essentially Orc-Lite, especially if you don't have sense stone + conversion seal or are a miser with glyph. Still better than the other choices though.

Both damage race are significantly better choices compared to the rest because Monk is a class that revolves around regen fighting.

Dwarf: More HP technically does synergize with resistances. Still, Increasing your Max HP makes you better at burst fighting, which Monk really doesn't care about (he's not going to one-hit any threats to him anytime), not regen fighting.

Elf: Max MP makes you better at burst fighting, see above. What makes the Elf even worse though, is that Monk... really doesn't care about most Glyphs. He wants Halpmeh, Fireball is a consolation prize and Bysseps doesn't work as well as it should with the new damage penalty ability.

Also, increasing his Max MP wastes a lot a tiles because you'll end up filling your HP up while your max MP is still at half of its value.

As an additional comment, there was this time period where Monks had 1 Physical slot (also known as the Dark Ages), which was weird. Was the devs under the impression that the Monk was a glyph-focused class somehow? Because he totally isn't, he's completely lacking in abilities that compliment glyph use and actually worse at using a couple at them compared to the baseline Fighter.

Trisword: Oh sorry, did I say Trisword? I meant Halflings. Yeah, Halflings have just about no reason to blow potions to kill higher level monsters when they can spend tiles regenerating instead.

I think this is a reasonable choice as long as the Trisword stays as it is or when the sense stone is nerfed/removed. What are the odds of that though?

Gnome: See Elf.

Goblin: Actually I haven't really tested this one yet. So I won't comment on it for now.

I threw it out once before but I'll repeat it here since Goblins got a similar change - Dwarves should get fixed, stacking HP boosts rather than bonus HP. +1 stacking HP per ~75 conversion points would be slightly worse than they are now at high levels (at least for sane amounts of conversion points) but would be quite a bit more potent early on, which is when Dwarves need the most help (since you're generally saving your scarce % based HP restores - potions and boons - for the end game).

It wouldn't really fix any of the currently hot issues, but I'm thinking that -1 base damage/level and -50% bonus damage for Monks would keep them at about the same power level but at least make the Orc vs Human debate a bit more interesting.

The slow effect only adds a flat +1 xp. This helps WEYWUT a little bit, but still leaves WONAFYT without a niche. I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure using WONAFYT will still result in less experience overall than than normal play.

I think it's time to admit that the concept just doesn't work and dissolve the glyph entirely. We have enough filler as it is.

EDIT: A very quick check shows that simply fighting monsters with one more level than you hugely out scores a WONAFYT strategy and uses up less monsters. Good players with preps/shop items/gods can regularly nail monsters 2-3 levels higher, at which point the the strategy begins to pull away geometrically.

Also, WONAFYT only gives you an advantage if you can one-shot the monster (extremely rare for equal-leveled monsters). I guess you could find the monster, kick it a few times, and then stand next to it and use WONAFYT to 'summon' it to you, but seems to defeat the purpose of the glyph. You will also burn a TON of mana (and therefor exploration) casting this spell over and over again on mooks, so I bet you don't even break even on exploration.

Still doesn't help. Even if it costs zero man, you are trading away potential xp for a few tiles saved, which is usually a poor trade. My first big breakthrough in DDT was learning that it is okay to burn 1/3 of the map or so at first level.

EDIT: I also want to reiterate that WONAFYT doesn't actually give you xp unless you have already found the monster or you are willing to cast it twice.

Indeed, the slow effect goes away the moment you strike the monster, so you have to 1-hit them for the bonus XP to kick in. The way to use WONAFYT is to summon the monster and then ignore it. Slow never times out, so you can summon level 1 and 2 monsters at low levels, convert the glyph once you're level 4 or so, then come back and kill those monsters in the late-game and cash in on the bonus XP.

This is still very niche and chances are its usefulness will have long passed before you even find it. Still the weakest glyph by a longshot, although if I have nothing better to use mana on I'll spam it to leave slowed monsters in explored territory as popcorn for later.

Darvin, that's an interesting idea. You could probably squeeze an extra 5-10 xp out of the popcorn like that if you find the glyph right away.

My gripe is that IMAWAL is still hands down superior, and we don't really need two glyphs trying to occupy the same niche (I feel the same way about WEYTWUT and GETINDARE). I also think that there just isn't a place for a summon-easy-monster-to-fight spell in the game at all, and instead of trying to bolt secondary effects onto it, it should just be scrapped.

Really, I'd be happy if I never had to see GETINDARE, WEYTWUT, WONAFYT or BYSYPS ever again.

EDIT: No sooner than I posted this did I get an opportunity to put the idea to the test. Found a WONAFYT right next to the entrance. I spammed it as hard as I could during the first few levels, creating a huge 'popcorn bowl' in the center of the dungeon. I found that after awhile, the spell seems to latch onto a specific monster and won't target anything else. At level 4, I ended up teleporting the same wraith all over the map, even though there were other level 4 monsters available and currently unslowed. Nothing I did seem to shake the lock on, and I eventually gave up.

The popcorn bowl ended up giving me almost exactly enough extra xp to reach level 10 during the boss fight, which allowed me to finish with the parched badge. Still not really sold on the idea. I could have gotten the same effect with one or two judicious castings of IMAWAL (I nailed a level 9 goblin at level 6, which is worth 21 xp. IMAWAL would've given me another 9 net xp, which was roughly the same amount of bonus xp I got throughout WONAFYT's ENTIRE lifetime, and with only ONE casting).

The change to "Slowed" made WHEYTWUT a bit more powerfull (but it was ok allready). I've been using it at the early stages of the game and what really made it work for me was the realization it actually overlapped with GETINDARE.

Funny story (that I allready told) same thing happened to me a bunch of times. Ever since I ran into Soul Orb, i have this strange notion that the Devs wouldn't make something that stupid available in every run, so when I first saw Conversion Stone it never crossed my mind that they'd make something like that lockerable. How wrong was I.

WONNAFYT turned from insta conversion into "get a bunch of uses whtile exploring then convert" teritory. With TT around, 1-2 lvl popcorn bowls are good, stupidly good with a fighter. Now that we have healing milestones, that would be a viable strat, esecially for a TT fighter or assasin, if the thing wouldn't latch onto stuff.

Making it only work on non-slowed enemies could be an easy way to fix this.

If it's fixed, and if the price is reduced to say 4 mana, it would possibly even break TT fighter (who is allready quite good, people just aren't using him enough).

EDIT: It wouldn't break anything as it's a glyph based strat, and would probably require as much scumming as cydstep strats do, but it would make one "adapt to unconisdered blessing from RNG on the fly" strat available. It would certanly add the fighter to the list of classes I'm cheezng on my minimalist profile as I have all the compnents unlocked, and the Gaan'Telet diploma of kicking asses with Fighter ^^

I've found that an early WEYTWUT is even better at making a popcorn bowl than WONAFYT. As I explore, I use excess mana to shunt mooks to the center of the board. Since you can control the the targeting, you get much better results than with WONAFYT. In addition, WEYTWUT's primary effects are actually pretty good, so WONAFYT is once again left without a niche to fill.

The early WEYTWUT is very nice, almost as good as getting the Fighter's Veteran ability as a bolt-on addition to your current class.